


Or So I Thought

by phoreverphan



Series: Ficmas 2017 [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: F/M, M/M, OC is a dick, dan is a dick, phil is a lil baby who doesn't know anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-12 00:07:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12946995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoreverphan/pseuds/phoreverphan
Summary: The first time Phil fell in love, it was because there weren’t any other options. The second time, it was because Phil had found someone wonderful.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yes I KNOW this is another chaptered fic but don’t worry, I have a schedule! this fic was also based on my life, and yes, we were actually this young when it happened. Thanks to Pye (piye-ruya.tumblr.com) who is Dan in this fic. I sincerely apologize for hating you so much, you’re amazing and I was an asshole. I would have met “Julie” without Pye, but I don’t think I would have realized how much of a dick she is lol

I didn’t stop to question why I liked Julie so much until she said she was moving. We met when we were in daycare together, and when we ended up going to the same primary school as well, we freaked out a little bit and had this big dramatic reunion. I remember that we stood in the middle of a big room with lots of windows, and hugged for what felt like a long time, with the light filtering in all around us. When I think about that moment, there was no one else in the room. I see us from third person, as a camera panning around us. A shot from a movie. A romantic, emotional milestone in my life. I don't know why this moment meant so much to me. Maybe because I was young and naive and there weren't any other things that had happened in my life to compare it to. I don't know why it was so special, but it was. That memory has been the same for 7 years, and despite my resentment towards Julie, it's still a little bit important.

My mom tells me that when she came to pick me up from my after school program, just after the big hug moment, I informed her that I had a new girlfriend. I believed I had had one before, that I had been dating another 5 year old, Julie's best friend, who, ironically, turned out to be aromantic.

Julie and I didn't really "get together" in year 2 though, I was much too hung up on Maya. No, it wasn't until year 6 that we really, truly, believed we were dating.

Julie and I spent every minute we could together. We weren't in any of the same classes in school, so we really ate up the times we had. Every lunch, every recess, every moment we had in the after school art program, Arts League, the same place we reunited that first time.

The year that Julie and I started “dating,” our school had chosen Beauty and the Beast to be the play they would put on. Because Beauty and the Beast centers around a rose, our school decided it would be fun to sell rose-shaped chocolates, so kids and parents could buy them for their friends. Looking back on it, this was an interesting decision, because our school only went up to year 9, so the target audience for these roses was questionable. Nevertheless, the roses went on sale, and on Valentine’s Day, Julie gave me a chocolate rose.

It was touching. I felt so mature, to have a girlfriend, and to be bought presents, and to be cherished. It was amazing. We thought we had such an advanced relationship. We would sneak around and find empty rooms in Arts League and kiss, by which I mean one of us would kiss the other on the cheek. It was exhilarating and surprisingly intimate.

Julie and I were so caught up in each other, there was only one other person we were friends with. Dan. Neither of us liked Dan much, but he was always around and always wanted to talk to us, so there wasn't much choice. That was what I said to Julie, anyway. In reality, I absolutely despised him. He was obnoxious anyway, but the fact that he was always there when Julie and I were trying to hang out made it a whole lot worse. Everything he did was annoying, and I made it quite clear to him how much I hated him. He ignored this, choosing to hang around us more and more.

Half the time Julie and I could have been spending together was spent trying to hide from Dan. We would see him walking towards us, and pretend not to see him, moving farther and farther away. Secretly, I had always thought that Dan had a crush on Julie, and was jealous. I never said this to Julie, but I did make extra sure to spend as little time with him as possible.

One day, Dan was absent. Julie and I were free to do whatever we wanted. We were walking around during recess, just like always. We clicked so well. Every time one of us said something, the other one laughed. Every time. And it was genuine. We were walking, and everything was just the way it always was. Suddenly, Julie got down on one knee.

“Phil, will you marry me?”

There was not a hint of humor in her voice, not one bit of a suppressed smile on her face. She appeared to be serious. I laughed, and Julie immediately started laughing too. It was a hesitant laugh, one she used around people she didn’t really know. It was never directed towards me. I didn’t notice.

“Ask me again in 10 years and I might say yes!”

Maybe we weren’t dating, since I had only been to her house once, and we never went anywhere other than Arts League alone, but there was no doubt that we were head over heels in love. And so I ignored all the red flags.

Julie consumed my life, all my time was spent talking about her, thinking about her, being with her. It may have been unhealthy, but I didn’t have many other hobbies. I had time to waste.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is, the second chapter! honestly, this was so dramatic in my head and looking back on it, yes Julie was really manipulative but like why was this the thing that freaked me out? maybe because she lied right to my face and then broke the promise like 10 seconds later, idk, we were young and naive lmao

Some time when we were 10, Julie told me her family was moving. We had only been "dating" for about six months, so of course, we were absolutely devastated. We were going to have to break up. Julie said she would move back in a few years, but everyone knew it wouldn't turn out the way we wanted it to.

My mum says the reason Julie did it was because of the stress of having to move. I think she’d been doing this kind of thing for a long time. This was just the first time I noticed.

Around April, 2 months before the end of school when Julie was leaving, Dan discovered a girl in our class, Sama, writing some sort of smutty script. Sama saw him looking and said that if Dan told anyone, Sama would forge his signature at the bottom of the writing, effectively framing Dan.

Dan was horrified, as all of us were young and innocent back then, and told me because he was panicking. Not the smartest thing to do, but he knew that under such high stakes, I would never tell anyone else, especially Sama.

Soon after Dan finished telling me what happened, we saw Julie walking up the hill we were standing at the top of and knew she was going to ask what we were talking about. As infatuated as I was with her, I knew that she was even worse at keeping secrets than I was, and I voiced this to Dan.

"Yeah, but she’ll start crying and saying we're bad friends. We have to tell her." I sighed and nodded in resignation.

When Julie reached us and inevitably did ask why I looked so disgusted, Dan repeated the story, me adding commentary when I deemed necessary.

"But you can't tell anyone, okay?" Dan said, looking straight into Julie's eyes. She usually listened to me more than she listened to him, but I knew Julie would understand how serious this was, especially with Dan yelling in her face.

Julie nodded. "Of course I won't tell anyone," she scoffed.

"Yeah, we know, Dan just had to make sure." I gave her a quick hug, then shooed her away. It was one of the few times when I wanted to talk to Dan. This was serious business.

Julie made a little whining noise, protesting the fact that she had to go away, but we ignored it. It was a common occurrence.

Julie must have given up, because she turned and walked away with a small hmph, opening her book pointedly.

Dan engaged me in conversation once more, the two of us just repeating how baffled we were that Sama would do such a thing when Dan interrupted me.

"Wait– what is Julie doing?"

I turned around to see Julie walking right behind Sama, her head still buried in her book.

"She’s not doing anything," I said, shaking my head. "She’s just reading."

"But..." Dan began, but it seemed Julie really was just reading. We relaxed and began to turn back to our conversation when we saw Julie tap Sama on the back.

Her nose remained stuck in her book, but the two of us watched as Sama wheeled around to look at Julie, bent over in shock with her hand on her heart dramatically.

"SHE JUST TOLD HER!" I screamed, clenching my fists in anger. "What the heck is she doing?"

While I was getting increasingly angry, it appeared Dan was panicking. I was confused at this, why would she be worried about a simple thing like what Sama would do when Julie had just betrayed us like that?

Julie looked straight up at us from where he was standing at the bottom of the hill. I gestured for her to come back towards us angrily, but the bell rang, signaling that recess was over, and we had to go inside.

Throughout the rest of the day, it became clear that Sama was not going to yell at Dan. We hoped this meant her threat had been empty, and not that she was actually going through with her plan. But to be honest, we didn’t really care. After Dan had accepted that there really was nothing he could do to affect how Sama would react, he agreed with me in that the Julie issue was much more of a problem.

For the rest of the week, I blew her off, talking to other people at recess and Arts League, not speaking a single word to her. Dan was the bridge.

“Okay, what did she say this time?”

Dan cleared his throat and grinned a little, laughing at the sheer absurdity of everything Julie had said since I’d stopped talking to her. “Well, she’s really angry at you now because–”

“WHAT? She’s angry at me? WHY?”

Dan giggled, knowing better than to point out that I had interrupted him when I was so riled up. “Well, she says that the Sama thing had nothing to do with you and so you shouldn’t be angry.”

“What does she mean it has nothing to do with me? Of course it has something to do with me!”

Without context, it seems strange that I was so invested in this particular event, that Julie and I were lovebirds one moment, and the next moment, I absolutely despised her when the only thing that changed was that she messed up. But the thing was, I was just being petty. This probably would have blown over in two or three weeks, except that this was only the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! the next chapter will be out in 8 days (dec 23) which I know is annoying, soz


	3. Chapter 3

After Dan was sure that I didn’t like Julie anymore, when I hadn’t talked to her in weeks and had been spending all my time complaining about her, Dan started talking shit.

 

Maybe that was the wrong thing to do, but we were young, and I was angry. I needed fuel, and Dan could provide that for me.

 

“Okay, so Julie was always super dramatic,” Dan began, widening his eyes as if to make his story more suspenseful. “And she would make up lies about you. Like one time she told me that you went up and started kissing her during recess, and you were covering your faces with the hood of your coat.”

 

“What?!?” Every time Dan told me a story, I would freak out. There was a reason this gossip kept me entertained for weeks.

 

“Yeah! And she kept telling me how uncomfortable it made her and how she needed to break up with you.”

 

“Oh. My. Gosh. I CAN’T BELIEVE that  _ she  _ wanted to break up with  _ me! _ I was being completely reasonable, and now she’s  _ angry at me _ for being angry at her! Ugh, she’s so  _ annoying _ .”

 

Dan appeared to be holding back laughter at how worked up I was getting over this simple story. I didn’t notice. I was too busy getting worked up over this simple story.

 

“Tell me more!”

 

“Um… okay, one time, Julie told me that when she moved she was gonna get a picture of you and then record your voice saying ‘I love you’ and make it so that whenever she looked at the picture of you it would seem like you were saying ‘I love you.’ ”

 

Every story, every time Julie came up in conversation, I would freak out. Part of the reason is that I was a drama queen, but I was also surprised. It was weird to think that someone I had valued so much had turned out to be such an awful person.

 

“Caleb told me that one time, Julie gave him a rock named penis, and then Caleb threw the rock somewhere because he didn’t want it, and Julie ran after it shouting ‘My penis!’ Sorry, that doesn’t have anything to do with you, but, like, you had to know that one. Oh, and you know Jeremy?”

 

“Jeremy Brown? The one Julie had a crush on?”

 

“No, the other one. With red hair.”

 

“I don’t remember him, but okay, continue.”

 

“Okay so Julie apparently would have a ‘crush of the week’ the whole time you were dating her, except she got obsessed with Jeremy and kept talking about him for like a month even though she’d only talked to him once. While she was dating you.”

  
  


Those few weeks where Dan spilled all his stories were hilarious, each thing he said getting more and more ridiculous, but just as believable as anything. By far my favorite was the last story Dan had. The one he had been saving up for the big finale.

 

“One time,” Dan began, looking straight at me and folding his hands, as if he were preparing to give me a lecture, “Julie and I were walking to this afterschool program we both go to, right? And usually Julie was really talkative, and was always gossipping about you, but this time she was really broody, and she wouldn’t say anything to me.”

 

My eyes widened. Julie got broody a lot, but hardly ever towards me or Dan, especially when she had the opportunity to talk about me. This was strange behavior, even for her.

 

“So I got annoyed, because she had been brooding and ignoring me for like 3 days, which is the longest she’s ever gone without talking to me for, like, ever, right? So finally I got fed up and asked her what was wrong and she looked straight at me, and said something. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. And I just… I don’t even know–”

 

“So what did she say?” I was impatient. These Julie stories usually ended in something ridiculous happening, and I needed to know what it was this time.

 

“She said, ‘Dan, you’re a lesbian, and you’re gonna steal Phil from me,’ and then she walked away and wouldn’t talk to me for a couple more hours.”

 

“She, she said  _ what?  _ Oh my goodness, that is actually amazing, like  _ what? _ That is the weirdest thing you’ve said all week!” I laughed and laughed, Dan joining in, the two of us amazed at the absurdity of what had happened. Eventually our laughter subsided, and I opened my mouth to speak.

 

“You know,” I began, “maybe Julie was kinda right.”

 

“What, about me being a lesbian?”

 

“No, you spork, about you stealing me. This whole time, I thought, well, I don’t know, I thought–”

 

Dan pressed his lips against mine, cutting my stuttering off. He pulled away, frantically trying to apologize “Oh my gosh, Phil, I don’t know, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, I kinda thought you were talking about, look I’ll just–”

 

This time I cut off Dan’s ramblings with my own lips. “That is what I was trying to say, and I don’t know how I didn’t see this before.”

 

Mums tell you that boys are only mean to you because they like you. Maybe that’s exactly what had happened.

 

“Let’s go rub this in Julie’s face.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thx for reading, I hope you liked this fic!!


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